


Wishing Hours

by itsthewickedstepmother



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: blame the vinegar tom rights gc for inspiring this, btw lilith isn't in this but just know madamspellman is canon in this ok, but wbk, i was gonna write something serious but this is what i ended up with instead, its an easter miracle, justice for vinegar tom, poor zelds, she would tag this with major character death, spells that go wrong, that's literally all this is i'm sorry, vinegar tom comes back to life, vinegar tom crack, zelda can't deal with death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthewickedstepmother/pseuds/itsthewickedstepmother
Summary: for one night and one night only: vinegar tom makes a miraculous comeback to breathing





	Wishing Hours

**Author's Note:**

> this is nonsense you have been warned

The sound of a porcelain teacup shattering pierced through the otherwise silent mortuary, closely followed by a screech as Zelda let her morning caffeine crash to the floor and her jaw dropped in disbelief. 

_“Vinegar Tom?”_

Her beloved familiar barked back at her in response and rushed to her feet, wagging its tail and leaping up at her as though he hadn’t spent the last thirty years lifeless and stuffed sitting in various rooms of the house. Pushing aside her confusion at this unexplained development for a moment Zelda was overcome with joy and rushed to pet him, rubbing behind his ears just the way he liked and he nuzzled closer to her contentedly until rational thought finally broke through her excitement and she realised this couldn’t be happening. 

“HILDA!” Zelda shouted upstairs and ran to find her younger sister, turning back to the dog for just a second to whisper in a hushed voice, _“Don’t you go anywhere VT, mommy will be right back.”_

With that she rushed to the bedroom in a frantic hurry, barely able to contain herself as she almost collided with Hilda in the doorway who took one look at the state she was in in alarm, fearing the worst.

“Zelds? What’s the matter has something happened?” 

“Hilda! Come downstairs quickly it’s the Dark Lord. He’s escaped from Hell somehow and he’s performing some kind of test or trick or something on me.”

“ _What?_ Oh my goodness how? You only spoke to Lilith this morning and I thought everything was fine, is it Sabrina? Has she been taken is she hurt?”

“No, no it’s not Sabrina! It’s Vinegar Tom, hurry up!”

Hilda stopped still in her tracks as her panic turned to bewilderment and she stared at her sister in disbelief.

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Vinegar Tom.” Zelda hissed again, still urgently trying to drag Hilda down to the kitchen in a hurry thinking the Dark Lord might be listening and waiting to snatch her precious familiar back from her at any moment, but Hilda didn’t budge.

“This is- this is about _Vinegar Tom-?_ ” 

Hilda’s own heart rate returned to normal with the relief that there was apparently no immediate danger after all, her expression shifting to what could only be described as a pitying look and Zelda snapped at her. 

“Don’t look at me like that Hilda for hell’s sake. I’m not _delusional_. Come into the kitchen and see for yourself if you insist on treating me like a fool.” 

Hilda reluctantly followed her sister downstairs, confused by how adamant she seemed to be about this when the house was fully protected by the Queen of Hell herself. They approached the kitchen in a tense silence until they reached Vinegar Tom’s basket and Zelda turned back to Hilda with a beaming _I-told-you-so_ smile on her face.

“There! See! Alive and well as the day he first acquainted himself to me. Now how do you explain _that_ if its not the Dark Lord’s trickery?” 

Hilda’s eyes went from Zelda to the dog basket where Vinegar Tom sat motionless as usual, her eyes not seeing what her sister saw as she knelt down beside him and acted as though he was licking and playfully climbing on her.  

“Zelda,” Hilda began in nervous concern, “have you been drinking?” 

“No I have not been drinking Hilda, perhaps _you_ need your eyes testing if you can’t see what’s plainly in front of you.” Zelda rolled her eyes and turned back to Vinegar Tom, picking him up and cradling him like a baby in her arms as he nuzzled comfortably against her. “If it’s not the Dark Lord at work then it must be a miracle. We’ve seen plenty of those lately after all, haven’t we?” 

“Well yes, but-" 

“Then I won’t hear another word to the contrary.” Zelda insisted, still not taking her eyes off Vinegar Tom and smiling hopelessly at him as he nudged her affectionately.

Hilda watched her sister’s peculiar behaviour continue and blinked in disbelief as though she was in a dream, softening her voice as she placed her arm on Zelda’s and tried to talk some sense into her. 

“Zelds…I don’t want to upset you…and I know you do like to have your little chats with him every so often and keep him part of the family but, well, you do know he’s still…” she trailed off, hesitant to say the 's' word in front of her sister but given the circumstances finding herself with little other choice, “…stuffed.”

Vinegar Tom barked but Hilda heard nothing as her sister continued to glare at her. 

“He _was_ stuffed.” Zelda corrected indignantly. “But clearly his time with me wasn’t over and he's not anymore now if you’ll excuse me, my familiar and I need some fresh air and time alone thank you very much.” 

Zelda swept past and out of the kitchen briskly, not wanting to hear any more counter arguments to quell her inexplicable personal miracle. Usually Zelda Spellman would be the first to question such strange happenings but _this_ , this was everything her secretly soft heart had always hoped for over the past three decades; the return of her first most loyal companion and she wasn't about to just let him go again lightly.  

Hilda stared hopelessly after her older sister as she left the room, following to the porch and watching Zelda stride off into the distance with a spring in her step that she couldn’t remember seeing in years. Down in the courtyard Zelda began to run gleefully through the grass, dragging Vinegar Tom’s lifeless form behind her as she threw him a stick to fetch. Hilda faintly heard her telling him what a good boy he was and she shook her head in disbelief. _Hell only knows what’s caused her to relapse like this over him this time._

Back in the house, a commotion in the hallway diverted her attention and she ventured back inside to find Sabrina and Ambrose loitering and whispering with their hands behind their backs hiding something, and Hilda crossed her arms as she confronted them.

“And just what do you think you two are doing?” 

“Oh! Nothing Auntie.” Sabrina replied just a little too quickly and not at all convincingly and Hilda’s sharp eyes pierced into both of them suspiciously. 

“What’s that you’ve got behind your backs then, hm?” She circled around her niece and nephew to see for herself but was surprised to find their hands completely empty, cupped as though they were carrying something invisible and Hilda frowned. “Right what’s going on?”

Thinking they had been caught out Sabrina brought her hands out from behind her back and tried to give an innocent sounding explanation.

“They’re just cupcakes Aunt Hilda. We…we baked them!” 

Completely perplexed now, Hilda inspected Sabrina’s empty outstretched hands. “You think you’re holding cupcakes?” 

Now it was Sabrina and Ambrose’s turn to look confused.

“Aren't we?!” 

Hilda sighed in exasperation as the two exchanged confused glances, questioning eyes staring them both down until Sabrina finally conceded and mumbled out the truth. 

“It’s a spell, well it was supposed to be a wishing spell, so that I could spend one more day with Nick. Only...I think Ambrose helping me must have affected the magic because all we ended up with was this mountain of vanilla cupcakes instead.”

“Sorry again about that, cousin.” Ambrose pitched in, receiving only an eye roll in return. 

Hilda sighed as realisation finally dawned on her, still not seeing the cupcakes but finally understanding why every member of her family had been behaving so bizarrely since dawn. 

“You used a volition spell didn’t you?”

Sabrina and Ambrose hastily nodded.

“Did we do it wrong Auntie?”

“Well, I think you just confused it a little that’s all. See it’s more like an illusion, a party trick type of spell. Whatever the last thing you wished for was will _appear_ to come true for 24 hours, _but_ only the wisher is able to see his or her own results. So if one of you started talking about cupcakes while the spell was taking effect-"

Sabrina shot Ambrose an irritated look confirming that was exactly what had happened.

“-then the distraction would have hindered the results. Which also rather explains why your Aunt Zelda is currently outside playing fetch with her dead stuffed dog, if she was close by while you were casting the spell.”

“Wait, she’s doing _what?”_ Ambrose didn’t even attempt to hide his smirk as the two cousins looked at each other and both rushed to the window to see for themselves.

Outside Zelda was still wandering the grounds with Vinegar Tom by her side, bending down to stroke him every so often and smiling from ear to ear like a proud mother as she updated him on all the latest happenings in her life. To her, he was running alongside her full of boundless energy, but to the rest of the family at the window all that could be seen was her trailing his stuffed body along the path and talking to herself. 

“Of course, I knew it would be a disaster from the beginning but you know how it is, nobody listens to me until it’s already too late.” 

Vinegar Tom barked his support, affectionately circling the legs of his mistress as they walked further along together. 

“And I always knew you’d be proud of me as High Priestess.” Zelda continued with a glowing smile as the dog hung on her every word. “You believed in me ever since my dark baptism, didn’t you darling?” 

Another enthusiastic bark confirmed his staunch agreement and Zelda chuckled in response as she leaned down again to pet him. 

“Of course you did.” 

Vinegar Tom wagged his tail enthusiastically before curling up on Zelda’s lap as they sat down in the grass together, the red haired witch’s mind wandering as she rubbed her fingertips loosely through his fur, much to his delight. 

From the window Hilda watched over them playing together and her mind flashed back to when Vinegar Tom had first been chosen as her sister’s familiar. She so clearly remembered walking past their shared bedroom in the mornings and overhearing Zelda chatting away at her dressing table and asking _dear_ Vinegar Tom for his opinion on what lipstick shade she should wear. Occasionally Hilda would peer through the gap in the doorway and see her sister holding up both options to him and agreeing to whichever he barked the most enthusiastically at. 

Shaking her head with a nostalgic chuckle Hilda turned back to her niece and nephew who were also still staring in amused fascination at this unexpected side of their Aunt. 

“Now I want to hear not one word about this once the spell lifts, is that understood? Your Aunt Zelda may act as tough as old boots but her old familiar has always been the secret key to her heart. Well, until you came along love.”

Hilda gestured towards Sabrina and Ambrose who did their best to straighten their faces and nod. 

“Yes Auntie.” 

They all turned back to the window and Hilda sighed sadly.

“She’ll be crushed when she realises he's not really back from the dead. She was distraught enough the first time around. Didn't say a word for days on end, wandering about the house with her dark glasses on as though the world had stopped spinning.”

Ambrose and Sabrina exchanged looks with a pang of guilt and decided they’d probably seen enough, backing away from the window and into the kitchen to clean up the rest of their invisible vanilla cupcake mess. Hilda kept an eye on Zelda through various windows, watching her pour her heart out as she talked and played with her faithful companion until the sun began to set. 

As night fell over Spellman Mortuary the volition spell finally wore off and rain began to fall from the darkened sky. Zelda stayed rooted to the spot on the grass, Vinegar Tom still huddled on her lap but no longer responsive and back to his lifeless state as she clung onto him, staring into the distance in devastation feeling like she’d lost him all over again. 

Hilda stepped down from the porch and approached her sister tentatively with an umbrella. “Come inside Zelds, you’ll catch your death out here in the cold.” 

Zelda flinched but didn’t move and Hilda bit her tongue. Unfortunate choice of phrase. 

“Ohh Zelda,” she knelt down beside her sister and pulled her close into a hug. “It’s okay, it was just a silly spell. And you know maybe…now that you’ve had the chance to properly say goodbye it might finally be time to let him g-"

Zelda suddenly found her voice and stood bolt upright, firmly cutting her sister before before she could finish that suggestion. “I’m taking him back to the kitchen to his basket where he’s comfortable.” 

Her younger sister sighed, watching as Zelda shoved Vinegar Tom under her arm to carry him back inside with a fierce glare in her eye daring anyone to object. 

“Oh well it was worth a try.” Hilda muttered under her breath, following Zelda back towards the house in defeat. 

_“Maybe next century we’ll finally pry that dead dog from her arms.”_

 


End file.
